


Things They Need

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Female Aziraphale (Good Omens), Female Crowley (Good Omens), Fluff, Gender? What gender?, Historical, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s), the angst is mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 06:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20670656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale have spent millennia searching for love, skipping from one human to another but never quite satisfied with any one of them. Maybe they’ve been looking for something only the other can provide.Crowley and Aziraphale’s failed loves told in a series of vignettes but its never quite about the person they’re in love with so much as it is about how different they are from the person they truly want.





	Things They Need

They’ve both had their fair share of love, whether or not they’d like to admit it. At most points it was unrequited, as if the powers at be had intervened, as if the object of their affection had subconsciously realized that the person looking back at them, wanting them, was barely a person at all. They so frequently found each other after moments like these that it was almost laughable. It was as if they could sense each other’s heartbreak and find each other without actively looking. This was how many drunk nights began over the millennia. Crowley would offer Aziraphale a glass of wine and they would spend the night on the couch, lamenting the loss of that which they craved most.

Heaven was a sterile place. Love abounded, sure, but in a way that was so pure that it may as well have been clinical. Aziraphale craved the messy, disastrous love that humans felt. It was the sort of love that brought people to irrational decisions, to taking risks they need not take. Love felt in stolen kisses and hugs so tight they hurt. The sort of love one wrote about in letters to a lover one had not seen in weeks when the ghost of their touch became so overwhelming that one put it on paper in the hopes of reliving it. He’d seen it before, in the shadowy corners of balconies after balls, pulling each other in by ones lapels with barely more than a sigh between each other’s lips. He wants someone to love him so desperately, to crave his touch so fully, that they’d take the risks that came with their love. He understands that any relationship he seeks will be overshadowed by the fear of being caught, but oh how it would be worth the anxiety just to be kissed every morning and to be held every night.

Crowley, meanwhile, had once drunkenly outlined his exact intentions and needs when it came to relationships, although he’d deny it if asked. He wanted to be known and understood. He wanted someone who cared so deeply for him that they would take the time to unpack the layers of hurt and dismantle the multitude of walls he’d built between himself and others, brick by brick. Someone who would put up with his shifting moods and ever changing physical form. Someone who would pry his insecurities from his cold heart and stitch him back together, lighter this time. He craved being wanted by someone who knew his mistakes, who had seen him at his worst, who knew his true nature and stayed. Someone who knew they were dating a demonic entity but loved him all the same. _To be loved unconditionally, graciously, in a way She had never loved him. _

………………

“Did you love him?” The angel asks as he looks over the contours of a jawline, brushing along it with only the most reverent touch, too scared to ruin something already so precious and one of a kind. There was a certain intimacy that came with seeing a sketch, a certain power coupled with the ability to hungrily take in every tentative line, see every rushed brush of charcoal, every erased or faded drawing. It was like seeing the inner workings of one’s mind. Somewhere, in the space between them both, that feeling has settled over Crowley and Aziraphale. On the aged ash flooring of a quiet back storage room in a lavish but closed London bookstore sit a myriad of sketches on faded yellowing paper.

Small notes litter the corners of them. Aziraphale picks out the elegant curves of Crowley’s handwriting, fading words forming both exclamations of appreciation for the artworks they reference or for the artist himself.

_What an honor to be seen this way through your eyes. _

He picks out the teasing and self deprecating scratch of the artist’s replies.

_What a shame I will never be able to fully portray your beauty on canvas and, thus, another shame these will never be finalized. _

“I did,” comes the reply to a question since forgotten. Aziraphale looks up then, takes in the very real, sharp lines of the demon before him and he knows. He knows the intimate inner feelings of the artist then, understands almost spiritually what his words mean. _I will never be able to fully portray your beauty. _A bittersweet smile forms on Aziraphale’s lips and he wonders which of the many thoughts running through his mind are its source.

“Did you tell him?”

He wonders why he asked this. He doesn’t want to know what could have been between the demon before him and the artist who has long since been buried. His eyes refocus on the sharp fingers tinged with sepia tones. He wonders if Leonardo ever truly understood to whom those fingers belonged. Did he know what they were made of, what they had done, what they were capable of? Did he know that they could manipulate the very fires of Hell, could bring down entire empires with a single touch? Did he know they were capable of saving an angel more times than either of them could count? Did he know that they had once comforted shaking stowaways on an ark, carried children even God had condemned and brushed away their tears?

“No.”

Aziraphale took in the impossible fondness of amber eyes on fading paper and wondered how one could be on the receiving end of such a gaze, how one could record it so perfectly on paper, and not understand its meaning.

“Couldn’t. Hell really wanted the whole Leonardeschi. Biggest and brightest minds of the 15th century or some shit like that. Couldn’t really hoard him. Besides, he already had a little demon in his life by the time things picked up between us, a beauty he could finally portray on canvas, I guess. Modelled John the Baptist and Bacchus.”

Aziraphale picks up the bile in Crowley’s tone. All that’s left is a small folder of sketches and the worry that something could have been.

“I think…” Aziraphale starts, but everything he wants to say feels completely inadequate. “Even if it had been possible and you had not been on a job, would it have been everything you wanted it to be? Would he understand you, Crowley, really? Between his inventions and his publications and his artwork, I doubt he would ever have had the time to truly come to know someone or love them.”

Crowley takes in the sketches and remembers, for the first time since they were made, how much he wished the artist would regard him with as much fondness as he did his likeness.

………………

“I’ve never seen it, actually,” Crowley says. They’re wandering about the halls of Papal treasures, holding polite conversation now that the discussions regarding their agreement had long since ended. Crowley had done his part and confirmed that the next Pope functioned in a space somewhere between wishy-washy and completely incompetent. He’d sign whatever Crowley or Aziraphale pressured him into signing as needed, and that would be that. A happy sort of medium that they would eventually come to regret.

But, for now, a soft sort of satisfaction settled over them both and something about soon having a seemingly easily swayed Pope in power reassured them both.

The artwork was nice, too.

“Seen what?” Aziraphale asks as they walk and it would take a miracle (perhaps it’s multiple miracles, Crowley hasn’t been counting) to keep him from tripping on the artifacts littering the floor as his eyes focus solely on the intricate tapestries on the wall. He’s always loved the beauty of these pieces. They were never quite right (creation took more trial and error than God would have liked to admit, and the ark contained quite a few more stowaways courtesy of Crowley than any Bible would have you believe) but he loved them for their interpretations of memories he had come to cherish so deeply.

“The ceiling your artist is working on. Heard him bragging to mine that his work is almost done.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks flush. “How much did…_my_ artist tell your artist?”

Crowley grins, all teeth and mirth like he’s cornered Aziraphale without the angel even noticing. But the angel knows, all too well, that this is a game. Crowley will take any excuse to see him embarrassed and Aziraphale will get an excuse to tease him back.

“Leo says your_ piccolo Michelangelo_ told him that you posed for him. Albeit in an unconventional context. Is it true?”

Aziraphale fiddles with his collar and wonders, suddenly, if this is the indulgence that finally gets him expelled from the priesthood. And to think that he was finally making progress on the Papal corruption… “Is what true?”

“C’mon, Aziraphale, you _know._ We’ve both had fun with this job,” he teases, stopping in the middle of the treasure-filled hall to rock onto the balls of his feet. “So tell me: did you, or has Michelangelo been lying to half of Rome about getting himself a literal angel?

Aziraphale looks down at his hands, mouth opening as if to speak before losing his nerve and twisting his fingers. His heart, being the nuisance that it is, feels like it’s attempting to lodge itself in his throat. If he were drunk, confessing to these sorts of things would have come easily and quickly. Besides, Crowley pays enough attention to the art-world gossip to likely know the answer to every question he plans on asking tonight. He’s likely just being nosy. _It’s a game to him. Always is with these topics._ He sighs, closes his eyes, and finally speaks. “Yes. But I’ll have you know that he’s been nothing but lovely and we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks now.”

The smirk on the demon’s face goes impossibly wider, a fact Aziraphale only registers a few seconds later when he hears it in his tone and opens his eyes to confirm its presence. “Wait, I’m talking about the fact that you posed for the Sistine. What are y-”

Wider still, somehow, as realization settles. “_Oh_, angel, this is _so_much better.” He grabs his arm and pulls him away, and Aziraphale makes to protest but the sound comes out as an unconvincingly disgruntled splutter. “We’re going somewhere we can actually talk and get drunk. Christ, Aziraphale, bet it was sappy too. Under his ceiling? Seeing the way he sees you?”

“Are you implying that I, a man of the cloth, committed a serious act of sacrilege on consecrated ground?” The argument is half-hearted, and they both know it, but it’s better than Aziraphale admitting that _dripping paint _was one of the major contributors to their deciding to move. “There’s a garden with a little secluded corner and he always finishes painting so _awfully_ late and we were nearly a bottle in which I know doesn’t sound like much but the man is a bit of a lightweight so the bottle was mostly mine.” He takes a breath and bites back a fond little smile. “He said he wanted to see what I’d look like amongst the stars. He always was a romantic.”

Crowley, always the jealous realist, wonders if this romance doesn’t mean more to Aziraphale than it does to the aforementioned artist. The local artists with powerful names will smother you in thick layers of poetry and butter you up with handsome sketches and consume you until they find another, newer treat. But Aziraphale deserves to be happy and who is Crowley to determine how that happens? He maintains his smirk by sheer willpower. _Aziraphale is a being of love, he’s probably right about this relationship. _

But then he looks up to meet pale blue eyes, brimming with fondness as they swim through a memory that does not involve Crowley and he _aches_ and he _aches _and he _aches_… He would trade in every fancy word and pretty sketch to have what Michelangelo has somehow gotten.

_I have also wanted to know what you would look like amongst my stars. _

………………

Crowley was nearly curled in on herself, leaning against the side of the couch with her eyes shut tight. It hadn’t been the worst rejection she’d ever handled, not really. But it was definitely right up there on the list of _shittiest _rejections she’d ever had. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that she’d looked hot when it had happened. She still did look hot, if she were honest, just with slightly smeared makeup from a rather self indulgent cry.

In her defense, she hadn’t started crying until she’d gotten to the hotel.

Aziraphale had seen a good amount of what had happened. She hadn’t intended to, honestly! She just happened to have picked the same day to go to the opera, and the same opera to see. It was a matter of taste, really. Some operas were just better than others. She had not, in any way shape or form, gone to spy on Crowley’s new love interest. But if she were to be honest (which she has been, this whole time!) she didn’t really see why Crowley had an interest in the lead actor. He was a touch short and his blond hair was a little blinding under the theatre lights. Furthermore, he was rather plain.

What Aziraphale didn’t see was the passion the otherwise common man was capable of demonstrating. They had discussed music and society. They had gotten drunk together at an afterparty for the opening night of one of his shows years prior and had spent the better part of the night avidly tearing apart the characterization of the love interest. Crowley didn’t take to people easily but this was different. The actor understood her interests and was just as deeply invested in every conversation Crowley had introduced. They’d built a rather firm friendship, even if there was something rather unorthodox about an actor and a lady of Crowley’s standing spending so much time together.

_Alone. _

The past few months had seen the rise of their names in the tabloids. He was the golden boy of the Viennese theatre community. She was a mysterious aristocrat without a husband who seemed to show up at all the right parties. They were sensational, the picture of a modern European love affair. Their names were whispered between members of Austria’s upper echelons, stirring cold jealousy in the hearts of partygoers and magazine readers alike. Some wanted their beauty, their money, their fame. Upper class women wanted a man who looked at them the way he looked at her, who held them the way he held her. Upper class men always had a thing for untouchable women. The headlines all but begged him to propose.

It should have worked.

He should have _loved_ her.

He _knew_ her, for Satan’s sake.

“Can you believe him, Aziraphale?” she says finally. Bitterness was seeping into her voice now that the hurt was gone. She didn’t care. He was just human. He’d be dead in a matter of decades. He wasn’t even that pretty anyways (he was, dear lord how he was pretty) and she wasn’t sure why she was still crying. “‘This has been fun.’ Who does he think he is?”

“I’m sorry, dear,” Aziraphale says, feeling woefully inadequate in her words but mildly adequate in her choice of drink for the night. It didn’t quite feel like a wine night, so she’d ordered the strongest aged whiskey the hotel bar had on hand. She didn’t even bother with the crystal glassware the hotel had so diligently stocked in Crowley’s room. No sense giving Crowley something more to throw. She takes a long drink before handing the bottle to Crowley.

Crowley gulps the whiskey down, already a little drunk from the wine she’d shared with _him_ earlier that night, but this is exactly what she needed. The burn to remind her that she’s still here, to take away any last taste of him on her lips. “I trusted him, Aziraphale, he _knew._The first human I’ve ever been interested in who I told. Everything. He knows about us, who we are. All of it. _Fucking hell, _Aziraphale, both sides would murder me if they knew just how much I told him.”

Aziraphale wasn’t even angry. She knew it would eventually come to this. Crowley ached for someone who knew her in a way that, frankly, humans never would be able to. Because it extended beyond just knowing who or what she was. It required a certain understanding of what she’d seen and what she’d done that only someone with a similar experience would have. _Someone like you,_Aziraphale thinks, but such thoughts are unproductive and _yearning_for something she can’t have is a perfectly useless endeavor. She won’t. She can’t. _They _can’t, even if they both wanted. Which Crowley clearly didn’t, anyways. _Seems we both want what we can’t have. _

“Was that what did it? Him knowing what we are?” Aziraphale hears herself ask.

Crowley sighs, still holding the bottle and letting her head fall back on the arm of the couch. “Not at all. Makes it worse, doesn’t it? He accepted all the rest of it, knew for months and acted as if it changed nothing. But suddenly he realizes _‘oh, my co-star is pretty’_and everything he and I had goes out the window.”

She took another long drink, staring up at the ceiling and sighing. The tears are gone and in their place is a bubbling and deeply held _hurt._ “Stupid of me to think that I could be enough for him.”

Aziraphale takes the bottle and sighs before taking a sip, letting the alcohol loosen her tongue. “Stupid of him to think he was worthy of you, Crowley.”

………………

They’ve both had lovers before and it’s never been a secret between them. If drunk enough they’ll discuss their most recent ones, compare their _merits,_ as Aziraphale blushingly calls them. There’s a comfortable companionship in these discussions, most of the time. There’s always a comedic edge to it that balances it out, a defense mechanism naturally built into the conversation that keeps it from becoming too serious too quickly.

But Aziraphale is _quite_ drunk. Even more than usual.

"He’s lovely, Crowley,” Aziraphale sighs, wine sloshing onto the pale blue carpet, staining it a deep red as he lounges clumsily on the chaise. “He pulled me aside at the party after his new play’s first performance, kissed me quite senseless. And the way he held me - oh _lord_. It was as if I was the single most important person in the universe, to be kissed as if his life depended on it. He takes things so achingly slow at first and then, as if realizing how precious little time he has, he’s a flurry of desperation. Oh and he’s so _tall_, dear.”

Aziraphale sighs. Crowley is really fighting the urge to go find this man and pull just the wrong strings. Make him fall in love with a man he can’t have, see how he feels about it.

Aziraphale’s expression softens then, cheeks flushed and oh how Crowley wouldn’t kill to have Aziraphale look like that as he thought of _him._

“He writes to me,” Aziraphale finally continues. “And I to him, but with nothing nearly as beautiful as his letters.”

Crowley closes his eyes, laying sideways on his chair with the hopes that he can shut out the lovesick look on Aziraphale’s face. There’s the sound of the glass being set on Aziraphale’s end table with a tinge too much clumsy force. It’s followed by a ruffle of papers.

“'It is a marvel that those rose leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing’,” Aziraphale reads aloud. His voice has become soft, the tone awfully fond, and Crowley feels the jealousy clogging every crevice of his heart. Aziraphale, however one to be obsessed with love and romance, has never been one to keep a lover for so long. But he shares mutual interests with this one and he always has been weak for poetry. The mortal has Aziraphale wrapped around his little finger and it’s sickening that anyone would take advantage of Aziraphale’s need for affection.

(If he were playing fair, Crowley would admit that Aziraphale likely has this…person wrapped around his finger instead of the other way around. But he’s never been one for playing fair.)

“I do…” Aziraphale starts, wetting his lips as he tries to think of what to say, how best to express to Crowley how much this newfound romance has come to affect him. Crowley dreads Aziraphale’s next words. “I do believe he loves me, Crowley.”

“That’s impossible,” Crowley says coldly, catching himself by surprise but not missing a beat. He’s not feeling forgiving today. Hearing Aziraphale wax poetic about this new, handsome, successful stranger has left Crowley feeling less than obliging to his fantasies.

Aziraphale sits suddenly, brows furrowed and accidentally knocking his glass to the ground. If he’s noticed, he doesn’t pay it any mind. The angel looks utterly incensed. “Might I ask _why_ someone harboring affection for me is so incredible to you?”

_Because I’m the only one who will ever understand you. _

“He’s in love with the other chap. The blond boy, fifteen years his junior. You know the one.” He’s being cruel, he knows. But Aziraphale is also, describing in detail every _merit _his lover possesses as if Crowley weren’t _right there._

Aziraphale rises then, and Crowley tries to swallow down his regret as he takes notice of the way his angel’s hands shake.

“Why can I not have one good thing without you coming to take it from me, Crowley? Can you not refrain from reflecting your own _insecurities_ on me? What is it, your own fear that you will never be loved?”

He storms out the door and Crowley feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

_He’s right._

………………

Crowley did a rather good job in the 80’s. Things were a lot more lax when it came to indulgences. If you had the money for it, you could have anything your heart desired, from cocaine to a harem. You could own mansions and islands and have the net worth of entire countries. If you were good enough, you could have fans that numbered in the millions and could perform for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide at the click of a button. There was an excitement, an understanding that the world had changed irreversibly and, with it, had brought a myriad of new and exciting possibilities. 

And the _parties._ Oh how they’d _changed._ The music was louder and the dancing less rigid with each passing year. It had all become more raw over time until it was more about the feeling it gave you than its inherent meaning and, with that, the lyrics had become more daring as if begging you to object. Crowley never did. This exciting debauchery was absolutely his element.

But it _had _isolated Aziraphale.

Aziraphale had liked dance halls and had even accompanied Crowley to them on multiple occasions. They would get drunk and push the other into dancing with a local until, towards the end of the night, they would sort of fall into step together and finish off a song by dancing a tinge too close, just the angel and the demon. It was…nice, easy. It followed conventions Aziraphale was accustomed to while still being new enough to entice Crowley. Somehow, the dance hall scene had become a perfect place to meet where they could just be themselves for a few hours a week, press the boundaries of what they were meant to be without shattering them completely.

Their decline came with the advent of more modern clubs and, with it, the expectation of more _forward _behaviours. While Aziraphale was capable of adjusting to some facets of the new music scene, he had difficulty adjusting to social interactions not governed by certain…rules of engagement.

Besides, the music was loud. They couldn’t talk in clubs and really Aziraphale worried he couldn’t keep Crowley properly entertained otherwise.

So Crowley had spent his nights out for the better part of the last decade on his own.

Which was fine.

He could pick up rock stars, famous actors, the inconceivably rich for a night. He didn’t have to worry about whether Aziraphale got home alright or if Aziraphale approved or if Aziraphale had gone home with someone worth his time. He didn’t have to worry about Aziraphale’s disapproval when he got too drunk or high (or both). He most certainly didn’t have to worry about accidentally telling Aziraphale about all the feelings he’s been repressing since the dawn of time itself.

(Because sometimes, just sometimes, he hears a song that reminds him of Aziraphale and wonders what it would be like to gather him up then, dance and drink the night away with him until they both had enough of an excuse to lean in for a taste of the alcohol on each other’s lips. They had done so before on a rare handful of occasions during the dance hall scene when they both thought that they wouldn’t remember in the morning. But they always did. Crowley always awoke to a ghost-like memory of Aziraphale’s lips on his and a longing in his chest that hadn’t quit since Eden. He always woke to the hope that maybe, for once, he hadn’t gone too fast for Aziraphale.)

He quickly downs another shot before leaning back into the couch to take in the sight of Britain’s most famous, eyes skimming over the crowd in the search for someone of interest.

(Is that what his relationships have always been? Finding someone interesting to take the edge off a constant ache?)

He spots someone with the same soft touch, the same decadence. He’s wrong in every other way but Crowley will gladly cling to what little he has. He knows this person, too. He knows his dreams and aspirations, knew of him since he was barely a performer, since before Hell had decided it _had_ to have him. He gets to his feet and saunters over in a way that betrays just how many shots he’s had. The way he falls into his lap, haphazard and a little desperate, grabbing the open bottle in his hand to take a sip before kissing him like his life depends on it, doesn’t help his case.

The man’s lips part a touch too quickly, too eagerly, like he’s lovestruck for someone just out of reach but taking what he can get. If Aziraphale can sense love, Crowley, it seems, can sense heartbreak. They both want someone they cannot have and, at least in this, perhaps Crowley can finally be understood by someone other than Aziraphale.

………………

Aziraphale has decided, genuinely this time, that there is nothing he despises more than researchers touching his books. There is nothing wrong in the way they do it. They are reverent, all feather-light touches masked with soft white gloves, prying open older books with patience so as not to damage their already cracking spines. They touch the book only when they must. Only to open it, to close it, to flip a page, to set it back in its place. They appreciate it fully in a way Aziraphale understands well. The way the scent of their age settles on you, reminds you that it is a product of a time so different from yours that you are here to study it. You are seeing, albeit briefly and only in part, the intricacies of someone else’s life with every page that you flip. They inhale it, its scent, its meaning, every single time they come to the small SoHo shop to do research.

They are respectful. Aziraphale doesn’t hate_ them. _

The man he hates is the head researcher, a man in his mid 40s who sometimes comes in looking like he’s survived the very topic of study he came in to ask Aziraphale about. He’s just as kind with the books. He knows some of them nearly as well as Aziraphale does. Unlike his students, he comes and goes when he pleases, knocks on Aziraphale’s door at ungodly times of night and asks to flip through first edition Bibles Aziraphale has never let anyone see.

He always says yes.

He sits next to him now, watches the way his fingers ghost over the words that he seems to understand almost as deeply as Aziraphale does. And Aziraphale watches and wonders how it must feel to be so swept off one’s feet as the researcher has been by this book.

Oh how he _wants_ and _wants_ and_ wants._ He wants the ghost of those fingers on his face, in his hair. He wants to be revered, to be studied, to be found valuable in this man’s eyes. But they’ve settled into something too comfortable and the wisps of the professor’s want have long since been tucked away. Aziraphale frequently forgets what it feels like to be wanted in return.

“Exquisite copy. The lettering is truly phenomenal and the very history these pages carry with them? Intoxicating.”

The man understands his passion, shares it even, in a way no one ever has before. He somehow steals the very words from Aziraphale’s lips before Aziraphale has even managed to formulate them.

But he will never quite love the angel in the way Aziraphale so desperately needs.

………………

Crowley, Aziraphale has found, does not fully understand him. Crowley listens to Aziraphale talk about books he will never comprehend, with a fervor he will never share, tied to memories he does not possess. He sees the carefully maintained Victorian outfits but will never quite comprehend the beauty Aziraphale sees in them. He teases Aziraphale for his sweet tooth, his decadences, his near-obsession with fine wine. He will never fully understand him in the way that some of his past partners have.

But he _doesn’t need that_. Aziraphale needs someone who will _listen_despite the confusion, who will _compliment_ outfits they would never wear, who will _tempt_ him with the things he craves. Not because he himself loves these things or wants them or shares in his interest, but because he wants and loves to see Aziraphale _happy_ through them. How desperately has he wanted to be wooed in this way? For how long? This much, he still doesn’t know. But had he been more attentive, he may have noticed that Crowley had smiled during every single literature-induced rant Aziraphale has gone on, has instigated every indulgence, and has called him show-stopping at every opportunity. Crowley has swept him right off his feet and Aziraphale has been perfectly blind to it until now.

“Angel?”

His breath still catches in his throat with every pet name, as it has for millennia, but now even more so with the promises they bring.

“Yes dear?”

The head on his lap shifts a bit, looking up with such adoration that Aziraphale wonders how on earth he managed to miss _this._ How on earth did he think that anyone else over the last six thousand years could love him as thoroughly as the demon currently lounging in his lap?

He trails his fingers through auburn curls and watches Crowley’s eyes flutter shut and a small smile curl onto his lips. _Beautiful._

“Run away with me?”

Crowley has loved before. He has loved over and over and over and each time one love ended, he worried he might never love again. But each time he was never quite loved back. He was loved in a most superficial way: a muse, a distraction, a source of entertainment. He could be worshipped and revered but never _wanted,_ at least not sufficiently to warrant any attempt at _understanding_ him, connecting with him. The humans could never satisfy this need. Even those that came closest and learned the most. Because it was so much more than a matter of _knowing._

It was Aziraphale skipping over old scars when they touched because he knew they carried with them more emotional pain than physical. It was Aziraphale enveloping him in a tight embrace because he hadn’t picked up the angel’s calls all day and _something had to be wrong._ It was Aziraphale offering to read aloud to him because Crowley had shown interest in the story the angel had rambled on about one day, but struggled to focus on the words on the pages. It was Aziraphale in every little touch and every little gesture and every little word over six millennia, all coming together now in the softest scrape of nails against Crowley’s scalp, leaving him breathless with the sheer adoration of it.

It was Aziraphale, in every slow-forming crack in the walls Crowley had so diligently built since his fall, like water grinding stones into sand.

Pale blue eyes crinkle in the corners. The soft sound of laughter leaves Crowley feeling lost for words.

“Where to, my dear? Alpha centauri?”

Crowley comes up to kiss him, slowly, living for the pressure of rose-leaf lips against his own and savouring the wine-sweetened taste. They commit every press of lips to memory. _Reverent, self indulgent. _Soft fingers paint along a sharp jawline and tangle their way into the hair at the base of Crowley’s neck. He pulls back and all but sighs into the breath between their lips.

“I have always wanted to know what you would look like amongst my stars.”

**Author's Note:**

> Lets be real, this is an excuse for playing with gender and some different time periods (although I delved into the historical less than I would have liked; maybe next time :P). 
> 
> Let me know what you think! This is a good bit longer than my usual one shots, so tell me if you liked it! I live for all the cute comments <3


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